Friday, 5 August 2016

Suppose you took everyone in Canada, combined their DNA and did a test for the geographic admixture. Here's what it would look like. The major geographic regions are used by 23andMe which I'll be using in my BIFHSGO conference panel presentation.

The statistics are simulated based responses of single ethnic origin on the Statistics Canada 2011 National Household Survey (the poor cousin to the census imposed by the Harper government). The donut hole in the middle, not to scale, represents the approximately one-third of responses which don't fit the categories - largely "Canadian".

Sub-dividing the 2.5 million who self-identified at a finer scale than British Isles, they are about 40% English, 29% Scottish, 28% Irish and 3% Welsh.

Unfortunately neither 23andMe, nor the other companies, sub-divide their admixture results to that fine a degree. Maybe someday we'll see that scale of result, as found in the People of the British Isles project.